It's almost a month ago that the spingroup met here. Everyone was curious to see what had become of the wool, dyed wit the easteregg dyes. Of course I took a few pictures and promised to put them in my blog. Until now nothing has been done, so I'd better change that quickly.

This month I had a severe attack of startitis. A skein of handspun I bought a few years ago in Finland as a preyarn disappeared in a wrop named Pfeilraupe on Ravelry. The knitting has been done, but the ends still have to be sewn in and it has to be blocked. I'll wait for a colder and/or wet day for that.

I have no pictures yet of the other two knits, but I'm also doing the fair isle sampler by Wieke van Keulen and, also fair isle: the Norwegian SAlphabet Blanket by Jorid Linvik. Especially the latter is such fun and so addictive! I use handspun for this too, because I sti;ll want to use up some of the enormous handspun stash I've got.
Nu nog maar weer even breien, dus. Of spinnen. Of haken... Want het vestje, waar ik lang geleden aan begon en waarvan de pas gedeeltelijk was gehaakt, wordt nu verder afgemaakt.

Now back to my knitting. Or spinning. Or crochet... Because the small summer cardigan I started long ago and of which only a small part of the yoke had been done is being finished now.

The yarn for this I found in the stash my mother left me. (A lot!) I already knit a cardigan for myself and one for my granddaughter of this same yarn. There is ample for this jacket. There simply doesn't seem to be an end of this yarn.
Aan het werk dus.

Not only we had Easter, but in textiles there was a lot to enjoy as well, this past month. We also had our annual spinweekend 'The Witthe Wieven'. With a group of spinning friends we spent a long weekend at Mennorode, in the woods of Gelderland. Theme: You don't have to do anything, but if you wish you can participate in everything. A theme I like a lot.
Het is natuurlijk al fijn om iedereen weer te zien. De eerste paar uur moet er dan ook vooral bijgepraat worden.

Of course is is great to see each other again after a year. So the first few hours are spent telling each other the latest news.
We kijken wat iedereen spint en vooral ook: waarop. Dit jaar viel op, dat er steeds meer electrische spinnewielen verschijnen.

We have a look at what everyone is spinning and especially on what everybody is spinning. More and more electric spinners appear.
Een van de activiteiten is het maken van een batt. Dit jaar had iedereen naturelkleurige vezels meegebracht en het maken van de drie batts (helemaal licht, lichtbruin en zwart) was weer een geanimeerde gebeurtenis.

One of the activities is making a batt together. This year everyone had brought natural coloured fiber and making the three different batts (completely light, lightbrown and black) was a great event.

Op de voorgrond de lichtbruine, daarachter de zwarte batt. De meerderheid van alle vezels in de batt was wel licht.

In front the lightbrown batt, in the back the black one. Both batts were mainly light fiber though.

The following day: show and tell time again. Always fun. Attention was especially for the products made of last year's batts. Hier Willemien's shawl, crochet and a fringe, 'because a shawl without a fringe isn't a shawl.' Exactly. In any case it was very pretty.

The meeting was in Nijkerk. Chairs were waiting, on top a few old magazines, put there for us by one of the two shopowners who were present with weaving materials. She had moved and found the magazines in her attic. She didn't want them to grow older yet on her new attic, so she gave them to us. Nice start of the day! Their website is here. There isn't much on the site yet, but they do sell beautiful yarns.
Op een tafel voor in de zaal legde iedereen meegebracht werk mee, dat zou later besproken worden tijdens een show and tell.

On a table in front everyone put work they had brought and which would be shown during a show and tell.
Maar eerst was er een (korte) vergadering, waarin ik wat hoorde over de gang van zaken in de kring.

And then one of the highlights of the day started: the show and tell. Such beautiful work had been made. It was great to hear everbody's story about what was made, how and why. I got an idea of who the members of the group were. Many of them I'd known for years, others were my friend on Facebook, but it was the first time we met IRL. It was nice to see the faces belonging to the well known names.

12.5 years ago our daughter Annette married her Taco. Good reason for a party they thought. I panicked. On their wedding day I asked all guests to draw something on a piece of cotton. I was going to make these into a quilt. Until september last year a box, filled with those pieces, was on my desk.
Er moest dus gewerkt worden.

Time went so fast that I forgot to take any more pictures. A filling had to be bought, as well as a backing. The 'sandwich' had to be made and finally an edging chosen. Which colour should the latter be? Blue, like the backing? For days the now almost reay quilt was lying there with a blue cotton I wanted to use. it didn't please me, so I chose something else. That looked better and so I could finish this project.

The day of the party arrived. Where we live the neighbours make a 'gate of honour' but where Annette live the neighbours get together to make the whole yard 'pretty'. The pergola got streames and balloons

Last night the weavers guild metand as usual a number of spinsters was there, too. I was shocked to hear, that many of them told me that they had put their dyed roving through the carding mill. In most cases the results didn't please them.
Dat verbaasde me niet: de wol was een superfijne merino, waarvan de vezels breken wanneer ze met geweld gekaard worden. Het spinnen wordt daar alleen moeilijker door. En alle korte stukjes die dan in de wol zitten, komen later als pilletjes terug. Zonde van de wol, zonde van het werk.

I was not surprised. The wool we dyed was a superfine merino, whose fibers break when you put them through the carder before opening it up. It makes spinning a lot harder and all the short bits that are iht wool afterwards come back later as pills. Such a shame - waste of wool and time.
Door het verven is de wol meer samengepakt. Om goed te kunnen spinnen moet deze geopend worden. Voor de duidelijkheid hier even een stripverhaal.

Dyeing makes the wool pack together. To be able to spin it easily it has to be opened. I made a photo story.

The following day I dyed some leftover wool and two silk hankies with a few dye tablets that hadn't been used (blue, orange and yellow) I started spinning the wool on my spindle and pulled out a roving of one of the silk layers.
Tenslotte wil ik Ella hartelijk bedanken: zij maakte de meeste foto's.